Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the former academic seeking to become Taiwan’s first female president, signaled that she would avoid antagonizing China if she is elected after her predecessor’s push for independence led to eight years of tensions.
“I am not known as a provocative person,” Tsai, 55, who is bidding to return the DPP to power after former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) left office in 2008, said in an interview in Taipei on Thursday. “The DPP is a very different party now.”
Tsai has erased the lead of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), according to a poll conducted by TVBS, as a widening wealth gap and high property prices spur voter discontent.
Photo: CNA
During her campaign, Tsai has eschewed talk of independence, focusing on domestic issues and criticizing the pace of Ma’s push to forge closer economic links with China.
“Tsai is trying to set a moderate tone and distinguish herself from Chen Shui-bian,” said Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “She knows outright bolts toward independence are no longer in the cards, but she cannot afford to alienate fundamentalists.”
As president, Tsai would face the task of reviving the economy, which grew at its slowest pace in two years last quarter as the global recovery weakened, while handling relations with a rising economic and military power that has described her policies as “unacceptable.”
A former professor at National Chengchi University who has a doctorate in law from the London School of Economics, Tsai helped author the “state-to-state relations” doctrine for former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1999 that led China to brand him “a rat” and “the sinner of 1,000 years,” and cut off dialogue with Taiwan.
“A peaceful relationship would serve both sides,” Tsai said in the interview. “The DPP has transformed itself into a party that is more focused on social economic issues. The Chinese would have to understand this.”
China’s military had as many as 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles deployed opposite Taiwan as of December, according to an annual review by the US Department of Defense. China’s government has threatened to invade should Taiwan declare formal independence.
“The Chinese military build-up has become a concern for all the countries in the region,” Tsai said. “If China is a democracy, maybe we will be less concerned, but it is not yet a democracy.”
The US, which has a commitment to supply weapons to Taiwan for self-defense under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, agreed in September to provide upgrades for its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s. It rejected a request by Ma’s government to sell Taiwan more advanced F-16 jets.
“We always want to have more effective defense systems,” Tsai said. “It is not a matter of us trying to have a military confrontation with China, but a matter of defending ourselves and increasing our leverage when facing China negotiations.”
Tsai says that Ma’s push for closer economic links across the 130km Taiwan Strait risks giving China more political leverage.
“China shouldn’t be the only focus of our economic thinking,” Tsai said. “There is the rest of the world we have to deal with.”
China, she said, “is still a place subject to a lot of uncertainty and a source of uncertainty for many economies.”
Under Ma, 61, Taiwan relaxed trade, travel and investment restrictions and ended a six-decade ban on Chinese visitors to the nation.
Last year, the government signed its first trade accord with China, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), to cut tariffs and increase access to services including banking, insurance and securities.
Tsai said the ECFA needs “constant review” and any changes would follow the “democratic process.”
Tsai rallied more than 100,000 people to oppose the pact in 2009, which Ma’s administration said would help create 260,000 jobs and boost economic growth by 1.65 to 1.72 percentage points a year.
The TAIEX has slumped 18 percent this year after investors pared bets on emerging markets. The New Taiwan dollar has weakened about 6 percent since reaching a 13-year high in May.
Tsai has rebuilt the DPP’s popularity, which slumped during Chen’s second term. The former president was re-elected narrowly in 2004 after surviving an assassination attempt that his opponents said was faked. He was later jailed for corruption. Ma defeated DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) by 58 percent to 42 percent in 2008.
Ma’s lead against Tsai has evaporated, a poll by the TVBS Poll Center showed on Thursday. The two were tied at 39 percent, compared with 38 percent for Ma versus Tsai’s 34 percent on Oct. 15. The margin of error was 2.7 percentage points, according to a press release. People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) had 9 percent support, down from 15 percent, the statement said.
“It’s an extremely close election,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The biggest problem is that [China] associates Tsai Ing-wen with the state-to-state doctrine. So they are very suspicious of her.”
A spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in August that cross-strait negotiations would be “impossible to continue” if Tsai’s policies are implemented.
While cross-strait relations are at their warmest in six decades under Ma, a widening income gap and surging house prices have eroded support for his administration. Household income adjusted for inflation was lower last year than in 2000, even as the economy was 46 percent bigger.
Tsai said the Ma administration’s decision to cut the inheritance tax exacerbated wealth inequality and said she would introduce social housing programs.
“Ma and his campaign team fail to sell on domestic issues,” said Shih Cheng-chuan (施正權), a professor of international affairs at Tamkang University in Taipei. “People don’t feel the benefits of the double-digit economic growth.”
Taipei-born Tsai, the youngest of four children, has emphasized her local ethnic roots. By contrast, Hong Kong-born Ma leads a party that retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after being pushed out of China by Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) advancing Communist forces.
Tsai, who cites former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former US president Ronald Reagan among global leaders she admires, said the election of Taiwan’s first woman president would set an example for China.
“This means we have overcome the historical burden that women aren’t supposed to go out to work and compete with men in society,” she said. “People in China should be inspired.”
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